Life Goes On
by A. X. Zanier
Summary: I think y'all can figure this one out without my help.


  
Author: A. X. Zanier  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or basic story premises to "The Invisible Man." Any  
additional characters or story premises are mine to do with as I please.  
Timeline: # 6 Four days after 'A Hot Summer's Night' Original Post 1/4/2001 @  
yahoogroups.com/IMFanfic  
Comments: This has been revised. Big surprise, huh? This one is told from Alyx's POV.  
Thanks to Rebecca(WorkerCaste) my brave Beta reader.  
  
  
Life Goes On  
  
  
"A man's dying is more the survivor's affair than his own." -Thomas Mann  
  
Everyone else left hours ago. Heck, they've even filled in the grave already, but I'm still not  
ready to leave. Being here is so strange, so final. Maybe if I had stuck around this wouldn't have  
happened. Seriously, what was the Official gonna do, fire me? Yeah, I wish. But no, duty had called  
both of us back to work. I had things I wanted to accomplish, just as he did. His were simply a bit  
more pressing at that moment. I should have stayed, or gone back sooner, or...I don't know,  
anything but the couple of phone calls to make sure he was all right.  
  
So here I stand, not sure what to think, what to do. My life has been through so many highs and  
lows recently that I guess I shouldn't be surprised at one more. The tang of smoke is still in the  
air and ash still colors the world gray around here. The low, dark clouds add to the effect. Too  
bad they aren't expecting rain. Funerals just aren't the same without it, somehow. Like the world  
is just as filled with sorrow at the passing of a life.  
  
I've been numb ever since hearing the news. I swear I simply shut down everything. I remember  
Eberts giving me the oddest look I had ever seen on his face. It took me a moment to realize it was  
sympathy. For me. I've seen him scared of me, with good reason, but sympathy? I decided then and  
there that I couldn't care anymore, couldn't trust, couldn't afford emotions, not anymore. I left  
and went home, eventually.  
  
When I did finally arrive home I found my answering machine blinking at me like a maniac. The first  
message was from Max. He must have called from work. He was talking as if it was me and not some  
impersonal machine and his voice--god, his voice--washed over me, trying to drive away the  
numbness. Then the sound of an explosion and screams, and then nothing, dead air for long minutes,  
before the system disconnected.  
  
Then the machine beeped again and it was Alisha Patterson. She kept her voice under control at  
first, but eventually broke down. With a tear filled, "Sorry," she hung up.  
  
The next several messages were all from the guys at work. Eberts had spread the word and they all  
called to see if I was all right. Even Darien. He sounded stiff, formal, and uncomfortable, but he  
called. For an instant I wanted to respond, to pick up the phone and tell him how I felt about  
everything, but I didn't.  
  
I didn't know how much he cared, not then.  
  
"A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly  
born. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery  
  
Darien. It's thanks to him I have all these stupid quotes running through my head. I was sure he  
gave me that book of quotes as a joke, but now I think he meant something else. Like he wanted me  
to understand him. What he doesn't know is I already do. I already do.  
  
I've kept myself closed off for so long, far longer than my association with the Agency. I've often  
said I don't trust, but that's a lie. I trusted people to do their worst. I was rarely disappointed.  
Then I met Darien and was faced with the ultimate contradiction: a man I needed to trust, wanted to  
trust, but was afraid to trust. I made sure to keep him at arms length, even though at times my  
resolve would crumble and I would let him in for a moment. I always put that wall back up, always.  
  
Maxwell Garrett. He brought the wall down.  
  
So I stand here waiting for...I don't know. Perhaps some great revelation. Perhaps to be told this  
is some great joke. Perhaps for no more reason than right now I need to be here. I've spent the  
last few days driving everyone at work mad. The tentative camaraderie that had formed between the  
four of us was shattered, or so I believed. Claire and even Hobbes tried, each in their own way, to  
console me, but I rebuffed them. Only Darien acted like nothing had happened. Only he took my  
drastic change in stride. Only he understood.  
  
I'd like to think Max would have understood too, in time, but time ran away from us. It's hard to  
believe I saved him from one death, only to have the same death overtake him only days later.  
  
Maybe it wasn't him I'd been saving that night. Maybe it was myself. Without him I never would have  
survived. Through either happenstance or my phobia, the fires would have consumed me, and he would  
still be dead. I owe him so much, and I never got the chance to thank him.  
  
"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." -George Macdonald.  
  
There go the quotes again.  
  
I hope it's true because, while I didn't yet love him, I did trust him. Completely. In that, even  
more than the fire or my phobia, he saved me. He broke through that wall I'd been living behind for  
so long. He restored my trust in humanity.  
  
Then I threw it away. Or tried to. The last few days have hurt both myself and my friends. I put  
that wall back up, tried to make it thicker than ever, only to find that I didn't want to hide  
behind it any more. I no longer need that wall. I don't want to be alone, isolated, afraid any  
more. One lifetime of that was enough. It's time to let go, and thanks to Max I finally can.  
  
Darien's standing a few feet away, waiting. Like he has been for a long time, I guess. He's the  
reason I'm here. He came by my place last night and insisted I come. Said that I needed to say  
goodbye. He hasn't said one word since. Just waited. For me.  
  
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we  
live." -Norman Cousins  
  
I mull over the quote running through my mind, agreeing with it, but I find it incomplete. As long  
as we still live, even those parts we thought dead can be reborn.  
  
I stuff my hands into the pockets of my coat and pull it tighter about myself. I release my hold on  
that wall and let it fall to dust, never wanting to need it again. It's time. I can feel the tears  
running down my cheeks, the first tears I've cried since hearing the news. It's the first time I've  
really cried for a long, long time.  
  
Suddenly I feel Darien standing behind me, his hands coming up to rest gently on my shoulders. With  
his touch, my last vestiges of resistance fall away and the tears flow freely.  
  
I may have lost one chance at love, but in losing perhaps I gained the chance at another.  
  
Above us, the heaven's open and the rain pours down.  
  
"Who will tell whether one happy moment of love, or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright  
morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life  
implies?" -Erich Fromm  
  
"Whom we love best, to them we can say least."  
  
Finis  



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